


Handling It

by PhoenixAccio



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: (sort of), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Possibly OOC, Seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23612572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixAccio/pseuds/PhoenixAccio
Summary: Jay sees Tim have a seizure for the first time. He's not very helpful, but he tries.
Relationships: Jay & Timothy "Tim" W.
Kudos: 28





	Handling It

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first marble hornets fanfiction i've ever written so sorry if anything's too out of character haha. if something diverges from canon it's not on purpose, i probably forgot. also, i don't have seizures and i've never seen someone have one in person but i did do a lot of research so hopefully it's not too inaccurate

Tim was out of medicine.

He’d been trying to hide it, to act like he wasn’t running low, but Jay knew what fear looked like well on Tim’s face by now. They couldn’t get the prescription refilled, he was out of refills and they couldn’t risk waiting around in one place for so long while Tim tried to get a doctor’s appointment. Both Tim and Jay knew that, and watched apprehensively as the pills slowly ran out. They would try to get more, of course. Tim had been to the pharmacy repeatedly with different stories in an attempt to get more medication, but the only time it had worked, the new bottle had been stolen by the hooded man and they were back at square one. They’d both known this was coming for ages, but it had still caught Jay by surprise the morning he saw the little orange bottle on Tim’s bedside table completely empty. He’d brought it up in a gas station two days later.

“What are we going to do?” Jay said, looking up from the chips he was comparing at Tim beside him.

“What do you mean?” Tim asked, which was fair. With the way their lives were going that could have meant anything.

“Your medication. What are we going to do?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Tim said unconvincingly.

“You’re out, Tim, and we both know you can’t get it refilled again,” Jay said flatly.

“It’s fine, Jay, I’ll figure something out. I’ve dealt with this thing before, when they didn’t have me on the right prescription yet. I can handle it until we find a solution.”

Tim meant when he’d been a kid, in that hospital. Jay knew that, and he knew it was a sore spot. For once in his life, he decided not to press. If Tim thought he’d be fine, maybe he would be. Besides, it wasn’t like they could stop _that thing_ either way.

“Alright, fine,” Jay conceded. “Once we finish this _it_ won’t be a problem anymore anyways, I guess.”

“Thank you.” Tim frowned and looked back down at the batteries. Jay went back to his chips. Neither spoke much for the rest of the day. They both knew full well it wouldn’t be that easy. It could never be that easy. The universe was a bitch that way, or maybe that was just the monster.

Jay was proven right the next night. Both he and Tim are running on very little sleep, after trying to make the drive they’d needed to make in a timely fashion, powernaps in cars included. They were both starving by the time they reached their new motel room, and they tore into their gas-station snacks with a fervour before Jay set up the security camera on its tripod to watch him and Tim sleep and gratefully collapsed on the most likely filthy bed. He was asleep instantly.

He was woken up about an hour later according to his clock by the sound of Tim coughing violently. Coughing was their normal now, so Jay would have been tempted to roll over and go back to sleep if Tim hadn’t sounded so much like he might legitimately dislodge an organ. Jay pushed himself out of bed and instinctively took the chest camera, heading for the tiny adjoining bathroom.

“Tim, are you okay?” he asked, pushing the door open.

Tim was standing over the sink, leaning heavily against it. His arms shook as he hacked up blood onto the shitty plastic. He looked pale and generally awful. Jay’s chest ached in sympathy.

“Tim?” Jay repeated.

Tim had clearly heard Jay this time. He jumped when Jay spoke, not expecting it, and looked up at Jay. When he saw him, he stumbled backwards, pressing his back against the tile wall. There was no recognition in Tim’s eyes. Jay’s stomach twisted.

“Tim, it’s me,” he said, reaching out to Tim in a way he hoped came off as comforting. Tim, however, flinched at the gesture, before falling into another coughing fit. Tim slid down the wall to the ground, coughing hard, before he suddenly tensed up. At first, Jay thought something was behind him. He nearly looked, but then Tim’s back arched and his mouth opened and he made a weird, choked sort of gasp and Jay remembered the video totheark had posted on his channel and the medical records that Tim had been so mad about him posting and he realised that he was a fucking idiot.

He kneeled down beside Tim, camera abandoned and totally panicking, and tried to remember anything he’d ever heard about what to do if someone was having a seizure. Jay was wearing a sweater—he was always cold since this had started happening—so he took it off and balled it up, putting it under Tim’s head. Once the sweater was in place, Jay just sort of sat back uselessly. Fuck. He could look up what else to do, but his laptop was in the other room and he really didn’t want to leave Tim alone right now. Fortunately, Tim stilled after a minute or two, muscle spasms slowing to a stop as Tim started to come back to himself.

It took a few minutes of Tim just sort of laying there breathing heavily, during which span Jay had plenty of time to get himself worked up about the possibility that Tim _wouldn’t_ wake up, but eventually Tim’s breathing levelled out and he moved his head to look up at Jay where he was kneeling beside him.

“Jay?” he asked faintly, blinking his eyes back into focus.

“Yeah,” Jay said dumbly. He felt drifty and off. “I think you had a seizure.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed, wincing. “Got the headache to prove it.”

Tim tried to sit up, but gave up after a small struggle. He coughed a few more times, and wiped the drying drool and blood off his chin, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

“Sorry you had to deal with that,” Tim said quietly, looking down at his shaking hands.

“Tim, you had a seizure,” Jay replied.

“I should have told you. I knew this would happen. It always does when I’m off my medication. I had them all the time before they figured out what medication made them stop.”

“This is fucked,” Jay replied simply, covering his face with his hands.

“Yeah.”

“We should go to bed.”

“Yeah,” Tim repeated. After a few seconds, Tim tried with difficulty to pull himself up, before letting his body drop back to the floor. Jay remembered the video and Tim’s leg, and held out a hand in a silent offer of help. After another unsuccessful try on his own, Tim accepted. Jay helped Tim up, and then he helped him to bed, where Tim promptly passed out. That was good, he needed sleep. Once Tim was down, Jay headed to bed himself. He made a note to himself to look up seizure first-aid in the morning.

That morning turned out to be earlier than expected. Four in the morning, specifically, after two hours of fitful, restless barely-sleep. Jay was already up, and had concluded he wouldn’t be falling asleep any time soon. Jay checked on Tim again for about the hundredth time that night as he got out of bed. Tim, as he’d been every time, was fast asleep and breathing evenly. It was fine. Jay sighed and stood up, settling himself at the desk with his laptop. Normally he’d have been looking through tapes, but he decided to leave the security camera running for Tim. He had something else to do anyways. He opened the laptop browser and quickly searched, “what to do if someone has a seizure”. Tim had said there would be more coming, and next time Jay was determined to be ready.

That morning (actually morning) Tim woke up around eight, still feeling groggy.

“Morning,” Jay greeted, having switched to going through older footage by then.

“Morning,” Tim replied, and it was.

***

(The next time Tim had a seizure, Jay really was ready. He got down on his knees and timed it with his watch, putting the sweater under Tim’s head again. He even remembered to put Tim on his side after and brought him Ibuprofen and a glass of water. It was the least shit Tim had felt after a seizure in years, apparently. Jay preened.)


End file.
